There was a time not too long ago — late September — when President Barack Obama wanted everyone to know he wouldn’t negotiate with House Republicans on the debt ceiling or his health law.

But eight days into a government shutdown, with the debt ceiling in danger of being breached as early as Oct. 17, Obama has changed his tenor and tone to avoid taking blame for Washington’s meltdown.

Obama’s position hasn’t shifted, but his emphasis has. His stance remains that he won’t give away any concessions to Republicans to get them to vote for reopening the government or raising the debt ceiling to avert a default. But now, the president wants everyone to know that he’s not only willing but eager to talk about everything under the sun — eventually.

White House officials acknowledge Obama’s fine-tuning. He is now stating his argument in a more affirmative way that better reflects his full position, they say. That means he’s focusing more on the idea that although he won’t negotiate in a fiscal crisis, he will sit down to talk about a deal outside that frame.

That recalibration was evident in the way he recounted a Tuesday morning conversation with House Speaker John Boehner for reporters in the White House briefing room.

“I am happy to talk with him and other Republicans about anything, not just issues I think are important but also issues that they think are important,” Obama said of his message to Boehner. “But I also told him that having such a conversation, talks, negotiations shouldn’t require hanging the threats of a government shutdown or economic chaos over the heads of the American people.

“I’m ready to head up to the Hill and try,” he said, giving a light touch to a hard-boiled position. “I’ll even spring for dinner again.”

From Obama’s perspective, Republicans are asking for “ransom” and threatening to “burn down the house” to extract further cuts to cherished Democratic programs beyond those enacted in sequestration. The Democrats, he argues, have already compromised to get to the level of spending that both sides agreed on in previous budget pacts.

The White House messaging evolution has had more than just two stops.

Obama didn’t issue any qualification at all when he told a Congressional Black Caucus gala last month that he wouldn’t compromise.

“We will not negotiate over whether or not America should keep its word and meet its obligations. We’re not going to allow anyone to inflict economic pain on millions of our own people just to make an ideological point,” he said at the time. “And those folks are going to get some health care in this country — we’ve been waiting 50 years for it.”

At the start of the month, White House press secretary Jay Carney was already articulating both pieces of the Obama construct.

“The president has been abundantly clear that he will not negotiate over Congress’s responsibility to pay its bills,” Carney told reporters on Oct. 1. “He has been clear all year long that he is willing to negotiate with serious-minded Republicans in Congress about our budget priorities and how we should fund them, and what ways we should invest in our middle class and in our economy, and how we can continue to reduce the deficit — continue the progress we’ve made reducing the deficit.”

Over this past weekend, White House officials began talking more about the contexts in which the president would negotiate rather than those in which he would not.

“To be clear, the president has been and remains prepared to negotiate on fiscal policy,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He has spent much of the last three years trying to find the sensible middle ground. He’s made offer after offer, negotiation after negotiation.”

“I’ve shown myself willing to go more than halfway in these conversations,” Obama said before offering to take Republicans to dinner. “But I’m not going to do it until the more extreme parts of the Republican Party stop forcing John Boehner to issue threats about our economy. We can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy.”

Republicans, including Boehner, have been sharply critical of the White House message, and even some Democrats had privately complained before the shift that Obama was unnecessarily portraying himself as intransigent to the public.

Boehner ignored the new framing in remarks delivered after Obama’s press briefing, calling on the president to start compromising “not next week” and “not next month.”

“There’s going to be a negotiation here,” Boehner said Tuesday afternoon.

Likewise, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) took to the House floor Tuesday to denounce the president’s decision not to give up anything in return for GOP votes on the budget and debt limit.

“Back home, Hoosiers know that we only solve problems by sitting down and talking,” Stutzman said. “Unfortunately, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuse to join Republicans in the constructive, respectful dialogue that Washington desperately needs.”

Obama’s been emboldened by congressional Democrats, many of whom felt the White House folded too early in those earlier battles. But there was a clear risk of incoherence for the president in trying to paint Republicans as unreasonable while announcing publicly that he wouldn’t even try to reason with them.

Democrats say the new formulation is a good one.

“The president is right to make clear that he has been willing to negotiate all aspects of the budget so long as Republicans are not threatening continued government shutdown or default on our obligations,” said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “It is a critical distinction that has been intentionally distorted by congressional Republicans.”